AUTOMATION AND SOCIETY

Automation has made a major contribution towards increases in both free time and real wages enjoyed by most workers in industrialized nations. Automation has greatly increased production and lowered costs, thereby making cars, refrigerators, televisions, telephones, and other goods available to more people. It has allowed production and wages to increase, and at the same time the working week has decreased in most Western countries from 60 to 40 hours.

A. Employment
Not all the results of automation have been positive, however. Some commentators argue that automation has caused overproduction and waste, that it has created alienation among workers, and that it generates unemployment. Of these issues, the relationship between automation and unemployment has received the most attention. Employers and some economists argue that automation has little if any effect on unemployment—that workers are displaced rather than dismissed and are usually employed in another position within the same company or in the same position at another company that has not automated.
Some claim that automation generates more jobs than it displaces. They point out that although some laborers may become unemployed, the industry producing the automated machinery generates more jobs than were eliminated. The computer industry is often cited to illustrate this claim. Business executives would agree that although the computer has replaced many workers, the industry itself has generated more jobs in the manufacturing, sales, and maintenance of computers than the device has eliminated.
On the other hand, some labor leaders and economists argue that automation causes unemployment and, if left unchecked will breed a vast army of unemployed that could disrupt the entire economy. They contend that growth in government-generated jobs and in service industries has absorbed those who became unemployed due to automation and that as soon as these areas become saturated or the programmes reduced, the true relationship between automation and unemployment will become known.

B. Automation and the Individual
Many researchers have described the effect that Detroit automation has on the individual worker as one of alienation. Excessive absenteeism, poor workmanship, and problems of alcoholism, drug addiction, and sabotage of the production lines are well-documented symptoms of this alienation. Many studies have been made since the 1930s, and all conclude that much of the alienation is due to the workers' feelings of being controlled by the machine (because workers must keep pace with the assembly line), boredom caused by repetitious work, and the unchallenging nature of work that requires only a minimum of skill.
The number of workers in more automated industries, especially those using continuous flow processes, tends to be small, and the capital investment in equipment per worker is high. The most dramatic difference between these industries and those using Detroit automation is the reduction in the number of semi-skilled workers. It would appear then that automation has little use for unskilled or semi-skilled workers, their skills being the most easily replaced by automated devices. The labor force needed in an automated plant consists primarily of such skilled workers as maintenance engineers, electricians, and toolmakers, all of whom are necessary to keep the automated machinery in good operating order.